Oil burner construction



Feb. 17, 1959 v. MATERESE OIL BURNER CONSTRUCTION Filed Nov. 25, 1953 FIG-3 INVENTOR. VINCENT MATERESE 1 ATTORNEYS United States Patent OIL BURNER CONSTRUCTION Vincent Materese, Dayton, Ohio, assignor to Mink- Dayton, Inc., Dayton, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application November 25, 1953, Serial No. 394,328

1 Claim. (Cl. 158-37) This invention relates to oil burners, and more particularly to an oil burner construction having special application to use on vehicles such as railroad cars which are subject to comparatively severe shocks in normal operation.

The invention has special relation to conditions which are typically exemplified by an oil .burner installation in the caboose of a freight train and which is therefore subject to severe shocks occasioned by the heavy impacts incident to normal freight train operation. When an oil burner in-such an installation includes the usual supply line connection for oil from the fuel regulator to the burner chamber, the elfect of such shocks is to tend to cause the oil in the supply line to be suddenly scavenged into the burner chamber. This in itself is not necessarily undesirable, since it merely causes temporary increase in the amount of oil in the burner chamber, but difiiculty is then encountered, especially at low heat settings, by reason of the fact that the fire may burn or starve out before sufiicient oil has been supplied by the fuel regulator to refill the line and thus establish continuous flow to the burner chamber.

It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an oil burner construction especially adapted for vehicles and like installations subject to shock in use wherein the supply connection from the fuel regulator to the burner chamber is of special structural and operational characteristics such that it is eifective in response to shock thereon to prevent surging of the oil through the connection by momentarily restricting free flow of oil therethrough but without in any way restricting normal continuous flow to the burner chamber.

A further object of the invention is to provide an oil burner construction for uses such as outlined above in which the line connecting the fuel regulator with the burner chamber is of special construction such that the direction of flow of oil to the burner chamber is repeatedly changed through a substantial angle so that in the event of shock tending to cause surging in the line, free flow of oil is momentarily arrested to prevent sudden emptying of the line into the burner.

A further object of the invention is to provide an oil burner construction as outlined above wherein the desired substantially perpendicular to each other to cause repeated turning of the direction of flow of the oil therethrough and thus to minimize surging of the oil.

Additional objects and advantages of the invention will 2 be apparent from the following description, the accom panying drawing and the appended claim.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 is an elevational view illustrating .a typical oil burner installation in accordance with the invention;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary view taken generally as indicated by the sectional line 2-2 of Fig. 3;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view looking downward in Fig. 2; and

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary view similar to Fig. 3 and showing a modified arrangement in accordance with the invention.

Referring to the drawing, which illustrates preferred embodiments of the invention, Figs. 1-3 show an oil burner construction and installation which is especially adapted for use in a railroad car such as a caboose. The stove body assembly 10 encloses a burner pot 11 and is provided with a lighter door 12 and flue pipe 13. The fuel tank 14 is shown as mounted on the side wall of the caboose, the longitudinal axis of the caboose being represented by the arrow 15 in Fig. 1. A line 16 connects the 7 fuel tank with the fuel regulator of conventional construction indicated generally at 17 within the stove body assembly, and a shutoff valve 18 is connected between the line 16 and fuel tank 14.

A feed line 20, which may desirably be constructed of copper tubing or like suitable material, forms the supply connection from the fuel regulator to the burner pot, and in operation it admits fuel to the interior of the pot at a rate determined by the setting of the fuel regulator in accordance with prevailing weather conditions. As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, however, the line 20 does not run directly from the fuel regulator to the burner pot. It includes a U-shaped loop 21 of substantial radius which is inclined from the horizontal only sufliciently to compensate for the difference in levels between the outlet of the fuel regulator and the inlet of the pot, and it also includes a downwardly extending loop 22 in a vertical plane at a position fairly closeto the pot.

In normal operation, if the stove installation is stationary or moving at a fairly steady rate, the flow of fuel through the tube 20 will have the desired continuous characteristics at the rate determined by the fuel regulator. Whenever the car is subjected to any of the impacts common in freight train operation, the result is usually to cause shock either lengthwise or transversely of the car, followed almost immediately by a reaction shock in the opposite direction. Such shocks have a tendency to cause the oil in the tube to be forced generally inthe direction of application of the shock, but with the tube 20 constructed as described, if the shock is generally in line with the length of the car, indicated by the arrow 15, it will be directed primarily transversely of the tube 20 and will thus have minimum tendency to cause surging of the oil therein.

If the shock is directed transversely of the car as indicated by the arrow 25 in Fig. 3 it will have the effect of causing the oil in the two opposite sections of the loop 21 to be forced in opposite directions generally balancing each other. At the same time, such shock will be generally at right angles to the loop 22 so that the oil which is at that moment occupying loop 22 will tend momentarily to be stationary and thus further restrict or arrest the tendency to surging of the oil in other parts of the tube. The ultimate result of these combined actions is effectively to damp out the surge-creating forces and thereby to maintain the line as a whole substantially full of oil so that the proper continuous flow is delivered to the burner pot substantially without interruption.

The construction and arrangement of the tube 20 as shown in Figs. 1 and 3 has been found to be generally satisfactory under test in freight train operation. For

some installations, especially "for-severe service conditions, it may be found desirable to use the further special con struction of supply tube 30 shown in Fig. 4. In this in: stallationythe vertical .loop 31'is arranged in a vertical plane lying substantially at right angles to the length-and width of the car represented by the arrows '15 and 25, so that this loop 31 forms a part of. the. generally-both zontal loop defined by the tube 30 as a whole. With this arrangement, the shocks which usually are directed lengthwise or transversely of the car Will thus have their maximum effectiveness at 45 to the oil'in the loop 31 i and will have the minimum average tendency to' cause surging of the oil through this loop.

While the forms of apparatus herein described .constitute preferred embodiments of the invention, it isJto be understood that the invention is not limited to these precise forms of apparatus, and that changes may be made therein without departing from'the scope ofthe invention which is defined in the appended claim.

What is claimed is:

In combination with a pot type oil burneradapted for use on a vehicle which is subject to relatively severe shocks resulting from movement of the vehicle during use, a fuel regulator mounted adjacent said burner'for .4 supplying oil to said burner at a controlled rate, means including a relatively rigidconduit forming a supply connection for oil from said fuel regulator to said burner, and bends in said conduit for causing the oil flowing therethrough to change the direction of flow thereof through substantially 180 a plurality of times and in planes substantially perpendicular to each other to prevent surging of oil through said connection in response to shock, said conduit being of such length as to constitute a substantially longer flow path between said fuel regulator and said burner than the straight line distance therebetween.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 393,263 Prall Nov. 20, 1888 416,877 Vogel Dec. 10, 1889 950,929 Lang Mar. 1, 1910 2,215,510 Jones et al Sept. 24, 1940 2,306,134 McCollum et al Dec. 22, 1942 2,519,570 Hayter Aug. 22, 1950 2,676,461 Gove Apr. 27, 1954 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,005,314 France Dec. 19, 1951 

